Rabbit hole

Nicole Kidman knew that the lead role in the film version of Rabbit Hole was a gift for an actress. The play by David Lindsay-Abaire had won the 2007 Pulitzer prize for Drama, and Cynthia Nixon won a Tony award for Best Actress as a mother mourning the accidental death of her infant son. Kidman's production company optioned the play, signed the playwright to adapt it for the screen, and took a risk by entrusting the movie to indie actor-director John Cameron Mitchell (Hedwig and the Angry Inch and Shortbus).

Kidman's subtle performance, coping with grief and the need to re-bond with her husband, has already earned her a 2011 Golden Globe nomination, and she might reach the Oscar shortlist. That would help recoup her portion of the film's modest US$10 million budget.

Mitchell wisely lets close-ups provide much of the narrative drive, relying on the cast to do what they do so well as supporting actors: Aaron Eckhart (her husband's repressed anger and sense of humour), Dianne Wiest (knowing frowns and giggles), Sandra Oh (comfort group's understanding member) and Tammy (Emmy-winning Judy Gardland) Blanchard (newly pregnant sister).

Newcomer Miles Teller underacts neatly as the student whose swerving car kills the child, and whose comic-book creation provides the story's title and the mother's calming images. Through his Rabbithole graphic book, Kidman's non-religious character delights in the idea of parallel universes where many of her myriad selves are having happy lives.

The movie is a pleasant, mind-pleasing, heart-warming family drama and love story, which means it's a good movie to watch on TV. Great cinema, no: I'm curious why the original play won the Pulitzer but not the Tony.

[Idle answers: None of its Pulitzer competitors (which can only be from American writers) gained Tony nominations. None of the other three nominees have been given Wikipedia pages.

The Tony was awarded to Alan Bennett's The History Boys; a filmed adaptation by Nicholas Hytner of his stage direction, with its original cast led by Richard Griffiths, was released that year. The play was commissioned by London's National Theatre. The UK's Royal Shakespeare Company had commissioned another imported Tony nominee that year (The Lieutenant of Inishmore, a black comedy set in Ireland), while the fourth short-listed competitor also arrived from London (the Royal Court Theatre having first staged Shining City, an Irish ghost story).]